Road pavers conventionally are equipped with a hopper which is fixedly integrated into the chassis. The front wall of the hopper is relatively low for filling the hopper with material from a dump truck. The side walls of the hopper may be installed fixedly or can be pivoted in order to achieve both maximum capacity and minimum transportation width. There exist different road pavers for different applications, these road pavers having different hoppers and different longitudinal conveying devices. Accordingly, at least the widths of the gates associated to the longitudinal conveying devices also differ from each other. The respective gate is provided in the rear wall of the hopper. The capacity of the respective hopper may be too small for certain applications when the road paver should work continuously. Furthermore, the form of the heap of material poured by the dump truck into the hopper or the internal distribution of the material in the hopper may result in segregation or a strong cooling off of the material. For these reasons a road paver working continuously and without stops is frequently filled with paving material from a feeding vehicle travelling ahead of the road paver at a high rate. As the feeding vehicle drops the paving material from a higher altitude (higher than a truck), a hopper insert may be placed in the hopper. The hopper insert has a very large capacity or a larger capacity than the hopper itself and also allows to form a material heap which is optimal with a view to segregation or cooling-off, and which, in particular, allows that the road paver to travel and work continuously. It has been conventional to customise the respective hopper insert for each of the different types of road pavers, i.e., to match the width of the side outlet, in some cases even of the bottom opening, with the width of the gate, and to adapt the capacity of the hopper insert relatively precisely to the respective road paver type (leaflet “Feeding Vehicle MT1000”, of the company Joseph Vögele A G, Neckarauerstrasse 168-228, D-68146 Mannheim, number 2428/1000/.01 Br; front page, pages 1, 2, 3, 4). This principle needs to provide different hopper insert types and to follow a certain logistic of each hopper insert for the road paver types. Known customised hopper inserts have given dimensions, and are very broad and high, such that it is complicated to load and to transport the hopper inserts (owing to limited passing heights and/or excessive width). In case of damage to a hopper insert a completely new hopper insert has to be provided. Furthermore, the respective hopper insert has to be designed such that the viewing range of the operator of the road paver will not be limited. Transport costs for large hopper inserts having given dimensions are high.
DE 102 00 361 A discloses to design vertical hopper walls of the hopper integrated into a road paver with a specific kinematic in order to laterally displace the vertical hopper walls or to pivot them about vertical axes, and to match the filling width precisely to the filling width of the vehicle pouring the paving material into the hopper. An adjustable cover may be provided within the hopper.
DE 297 13 808 U discloses a large road paver of which the lateral walls of the hopper and the caterpillar carriages can be adjusted in lateral directions.
DE 198 00 915 A discloses to sequentially introduce exchange containers into the integrated hopper of a road paver and to again remove the emptied exchange containers. The exchange containers are prefilled with paving material and are closed on all sides. The exchange containers may have double walls and/or thermal insulations and can be transported on conventional trucks.